


she is tomorrow (and i am today)

by cyclothimic



Series: express [6]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Express Prompt, F/F, Guilt, Kara Danvers feels guilty, Kidnapping, LEX LUTHOR LOVES HIS SISTER OKAY, Lena Luthor is trying to be strong, Non-Graphic Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prompt Fill, Protective Kara Danvers, Reunions, Romance, Stand Alone, The DEO | Department of Extra-Normal Operations, Torture, Trauma, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 23:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17171498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyclothimic/pseuds/cyclothimic
Summary: prompt: [bad guy] escaped and captured Lena and holds her for abt a year before Kara find her. Lena goes through some shit and it’s very dark and angsty. At the end it flash forwards and she’s mostly recovered and in a relationship with Kara.-"I'm sorry," she said, not even resisting from crying.She was apologizing for so many things at once. For being here. For having done this to Lena. For remind that Lena that she was only here because of Kara. For showing up at L-Corp that fateful day and propelling all these."It's not your fault," Lena replied without pause, resolute and sure in her words.-or Non is actually alive and finds out that Lena is the most important person to Kara so he kidnaps her, and Lena comes back traumatized.





	she is tomorrow (and i am today)

**Author's Note:**

> it took me almost a month to finish this express prompt and honestly, i have no explanation except for the fact that i lost my direction. this is for whatiwork4 on tumblr - hope you like it!
> 
> now, read, ponder, and enjoy!

_If loving her is heartache for me,_

_If holding her means that I have to bleed,_

_Then I am the martyr;_

_Love is to blame._

_-Trading Yesterday, She is the Sunlight_

* * *

Saying that Clark had been positively livid after they had relayed their last resort to him would be an understatement. And it was understandable. He was the prime target of Lex Luthor's alien rampage, after all, and he almost sacrificed his life to be able to place Lex in maximum security with ARGUS. They were pretty much asking him for the impossible.

Except they weren't really asking him. They were merely informing him of what they were about to do, out of respect. Kara had long abandoned any sense of politeness and decorum after half a year since she had to watch Non fly away with Lena in his arms, all the while knowing he would only hurt her if she went after them.

She didn't care that the DEO had to clean up after her in her efforts to look for Lena. National boundaries meant nothing to her as she scourged foreign properties that even signaled a little hint of alien activities that might have been Non's doing. She even went to Earth-1 and kidnapped Felicity and Cisco to see if they could offer any input. And now, six months later with absolutely nothing concrete, Kara didn't really care that Clark might hate her forever for this.

"What if it was Lois?" she only said, fully aware of how low it was to bring up her cousin's girlfriend.

Clark had paused in his rant to stare at her, affronted and disbelieving. One glance at their companions told her that they hadn't expected her to say something like this either.

She licked her lips and dared to meet her cousin's eyes, hands clenched at her sides, kind of unable to believe that she herself was ready to fight him if the situation warranted it. But here they were.

It had been six months. Six months without green eyes and open smiles. Six months without late night conversations and impromptu dinner or lunch dates. Six months of tossing and turning in bed because if she slept, she would dream of Lena Luthor. Six months of hearing Non call her his niece in her head, a haunting reminder that Lena's disappearance had been because of Kara,  _again_.

Six months of wallowing in self-flagellation because of course it would take not having Lena by her side for Kara to realize that she was absolutely head over heels in love with the CEO.

Kara didn't know many things. She didn't know about the future. She didn't know where they were. She didn't know how Non had survived. She didn't know she managed to miss that he had survived. But she  _did_ know that she couldn't go through another six months of this.

"What if it was Lois?" she repeated.

"That's not fair."

"No, it's not fair," she agreed. "Because Lois is here. She's safe. Lena's  _not_."

"They're completely different!"

"Why?" she demanded, approaching him until they were right in front of each other. Alex gave her a verbal warning while Sam stood up in preparation for a potential blowup. "Because she's a Luthor?"

Clark scoffed, shaking his head and taking a few steps back with his arms akimbo. "Don't you use that rhetoric against me. You know I trust her after all these years." His nostrils flared. "It's because he  _is_. And I will not let you –"

"Good thing I'm not asking for your permission then," she said coldly. "We're doing this, with or without you."

Clark stared at her in disbelief, mouth slightly open and eyes torn with sadness. It was here that Kara knew their relationship would suffer yet another cataclysmic shift, perhaps irreparable. But she was willing to risk it. Willing to lose her cousin for the woman she loved. After all, Lena had been there for her in a few years more than Clark had in more than a decade.

They locked eyes for a few more moments before Kara turned to her sister with a nod. As she made her way out of the DEO to prepare herself for what was to come, Clark stopped her.

"Why are you doing this?"

She almost told him why. But she remembered that one time when she broke down in Eliza's arms, mumbling about how she couldn't do this without Lena and why there was such a big hole left in her absence. She had almost told Eliza those words too, but Eliza shook her head and told Kara that she shouldn't be the first person Kara said those words to.

" _I shouldn't be the first to hear it_ ," Eliza had said.

Her adoptive mother had given her a lot of advice over the years, but Kara had never held on to one as hard as she had held on to this one. So she just shot her cousin a look over her shoulder.

"You should know."

* * *

Just because Kara was desperate and almost blind in her pursue to locate Lena didn't mean she had become entirely stupid. Hell, she was arguably smarter than anyone in DEO, probably on Earth, except maybe Lena. Thus, she was fully comprehensive of how much of a danger Lex Luthor could pose to the world at his release, no matter how temporary it was.

It was why, in an arguably historical turn of events, DEO and ARGUS worked together to make sure that Lex Luthor was under the highest security possible to keep him in check. Chains. Drones. Alarms. Anything they could think of, they whipped it out and clamped it on him.

Lex had been, unsurprisingly, smug and intolerable when he was led out of his cell to see the two Kryptonians standing outside. It only took them mentioning that Lena was missing for him to shut up. They were reluctant to tell him why, but knew that they had to for him to be able to help.

The man would have lunged himself at them, regardless of their super strength, if not for the weights around his ankles. "I  _knew_ you were bad news," he snarled.

Kara was finding it difficult to reconcile this man with the one who had sent assassins after his sister time and time again. This man who seemed positively enraged at the idea of his sister's disappearance, like he cared at all. She took a moment to herself to comprehend this snarling serial killer, sweating and at the edge of his seat.

"We don't have time for this," Clark said, chancing a glance at the blonde.

"Every family has bad seeds, Lex. Non is mine. Your family, on the other hand, has a good seed, and that's Lena."

Lex managed to calm at that. He narrowed his eyes at her and tilted his head as he scrutinized her. He seemed like he was going to say something, but instead chose: "Where do you need me?"

They brought him back to the DEO, and good thing Brainy was enough of a 21st century non-friendly to suggest bringing Lex into the equation unironically. Because with Lex's ample knowledge about the Kryptonians – one might even say his understanding far surpassed Kara's – Brainy's predictive abilities, and Winn's way around computers, they finally found something.

Still, as Kara, Clark, Sam, and J'onn made their way past the atmosphere to outer space, she couldn't help but wonder what that look on Lex's face earlier had meant.

* * *

Since her emergence as National City's darling superhero, she had had her fair share of supervillains, one of them was even one of her best friends with a killing machine installed in her head. Her uncle, this time, once again, was significantly weaker than the last time, and he obviously hadn't expected them to show up and find him.

But Kara had never felt more inclined to ignore her no-kill policy and kill Non right then and there. And the emotional toll it took for her to get a hold of her emotions and remind herself was more exhausting than fighting Reign or a whole host of Daxamite army.

That urge was there because they barged into Non's rather well concealed ship and the first thing Kara saw was Non standing by a glass case filled with a foreign off-white liquid, floating inside was the one and only Lena. With just one glance, Kara could see the pallid façade of Lena's skin, the paleness to her lips, and never had she ever seen Lena appear so  _weak_.

Since he was significantly weaker, they subdued her uncle easily. But transporting Lena back to Earth was another matter entirely. None of them had any idea as to how they could do anything without harming the person inside, since they had absolutely no idea what had been done to Lena in the first place, thus the physiological changes that might have occurred.

In the end, they had to reluctantly summon Lex again for proper assistance. And they successfully transported Lena back to Earth for emergency treatment.

Apparently, Non had learnt his fair share of forms of torture that humans employed, and he decided that Lena was the perfect target to test them out on.

Alex literally broke down when she listed out the many,  _many_  damages that had been done to Lena, from deliberate sleep deprivation to electric shocks. She detailed out the abundance of scars that Lena had collected over the past six months. Not only so, Non had also decided that testing out Lena with liquified Kryptonite was an ideal torture method, and that had caused certain chemical changes within Lena's body that they still couldn't identify.

"It's bad," Alex sobbed.

Kara stumbled back and flew off. When she came back, Sam had already pummeled Non half to death. Winn told her that it took Clark and J'onn and Alex to pull her back for him to keep his life.

* * *

"You need to see her."

"I am."

Sam sighed in aggravation. "Kara."

"I'm looking at her right now."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

Kara watched from the distance that only Kryptonians would be able to see from, high up in the air and very far away from the woman in the question. Sam had found her easily and floated next to her, watching the same woman.

They had placed Lena in the most comfortable room they could find in the facility, with everyone decking it out to the max to make sure that Lena could get the most out of it. She had been staying in that room for two months, which might seem a short time for someone to recover from crying at the top of her lungs and begging for anyone in the room to  _stop_ every single time she woke up, but Lena was strong, so of course she managed to do it.

Except it wasn't just Lena's strength. In the beginning, they weren't sure how to handle the episodes.

" _Please! No. Please stop. Please. I can't do this anymore. Stop. Please_."

A cycle on repeat. Never ending. Stretching well into the night and scaring almost every single person in the building.

Every single time, Alex had to sedate her to have her fall asleep again, if only to relieve Lena from the pain. Kara had listened to it from afar and refused to come any closer, convinced that her presence would only make things worse, while her heart broke and broke and broke with each cry and each plea.

It was then decided that sedation wasn't the best solution, and they couldn't convince Kara to go anywhere within a hundred miles near the woman. So they had to resort to the next best familiarity: Lex Luthor.

Kara never got the chance to dive into why he had been so enraged at the knowledge of his sister being kidnapped by her uncle; she was a little busy burying herself deep in self-guilt. And yet, it only took Lex Luthor sauntering into the room for Lena to even return to a fraction of who she was, coherent and intelligent.

Lex turned out to be the only person capable of engaging Lena in a conversation. Kara had never tried to eavesdrop; she didn't have a right to know anymore now that she couldn't even gather the courage to face the raven haired woman.

"I get nightmares, you know," Sam said. "I dream about my life without my best friend, my daughter without her favorite aunt."

"Please don't."

"Sometimes, I even dream about all those things happening to her, all the while just waiting for us to get her. Or maybe she didn't even expect us to rescue her, because she wants us to be safe ultimately."

"Sam."

"But if she was, at what point did she give up waiting? When did she lose track of time? When did she give up on fighting? When –"

" _Stop it_." Kara swung around in the air to face Sam. "Stop saying all those things. I think about all those things all the time. I can't face her because of all those things. I don't know  _how_ to face her because of all those things!"

"Do you know the one thing that kept me anchored during all those…bad thoughts and horrible nightmares?" Sam ploughed on. "It's your sister. Your sister holds me. Your sister soothes me. Your sister helps me with Ruby while I deal with the responsibility I feel for not getting to her soon enough. Your sister is there for me,  _always_."

"Well, good for you. Congratulations. I'm glad that you and my sister have each other. I still don't know why you're telling me all these things," Kara snapped, shaking Sam's arms off her and flying a few feet away from the other Kryptonian.

Sam didn't relent, inching towards the blonde. "Because I wasn't there but I'm already in so much pain about it, about my best friend's pain. Now imagine Lena having to relive all those things when she's alone at night. We have reports of her screaming and crying in the middle of the night, calling for help in her sleep. Lex Luthor does nothing but make her forget temporarily. She has  _no one_  to be there for her – no one she  _wants_ to be near her in that capacity. Not even me. Not Alex.  _No one_."

Hearing those things only made her feel worse. Kara threw a glance at the DEO before burying her face in her own hands, fighting back the tears and willing the ache that was still capable of growing in her chest to go away.

"No one except for you."

Kara inhaled sharply, meeting Sam's eyes in shock.

The brunette shrugged with a mirthless smile. "She cries a lot. Screams a lot. But most of all, she calls for you a lot. Worries about you even in her sleep. My best friend, the mighty Lena Luthor who has billions to her name and about 235 IQ points in her brain, as damaged as she is, as much pain as she is in right now, she's still thinking about you, even when she's unconscious." Sam tilted her head and jerked her head in the direction of the facility. "Do you understand?"

At that point, Kara didn't think she could any more of it even if she wanted to. So she did the only thing she could, which was unbefitting of Kara Danvers and entirely cowardly on her part – she flew up, up, and far away from the reality that Sam had so cruelly confronted her with.

Kara Danvers had a peculiar knock – always rapid and lively, like she was always excited to meet whomever was behind the door she was knocking on. This time, however, her knocks were menial, almost inaudible to human ears, like she was hoping that the person behind the door wouldn't hear her.

* * *

There was only silence panning the knocks. And she was on the verge of telling herself that was it and turning around, but her sister's hand on her shoulder was firm. Kara could easily just swing out of the redhead's way and get the hell out of dodge, but she could also feel her sister's staring at her from behind her,  _daring_ her to escape this decision.

Kara sighed and rapped her fist on the door again, as weak as the ones earlier. Alex only huffed in frustration and knocked louder, definitely announcing their presence to the occupant inside. When Kara glared at Alex, the redhead only raised her brows challengingly with a shrug.

"Who is it?"

One pleading look at Alex only warranted her another raise of brows and a not-so-kind jerk of head towards the door.

Kara clenched her jaw, preparing herself for the onslaught of anger and coldness that was sure to confront her, and replied, "It's Kara."

"Oh," Lena breathed from inside, clearly only meant for herself, not meant to be said out loud.

But Kara's had learned to be attuned to both Lena and her sister, picking up on them whenever she wanted easily, if only to give herself a peace of mind whenever she needed it. The seconds that she had to wait for permission to enter felt like hours, where her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides and her heart pumped anxiously and her sister's grip on her shoulder dissolved in her clouds of self-doubt.

Then Lena inhaled deeply and Kara had to close her eyes, feeling the regret sink in at having placed such doubts in Lena during her absence.

"Come in."

Alex gave her shoulder a reaffirming squeeze before releasing Kara, opening the door for Kara, and then walking away to give them their privacy.

Like it was mocking them, the door swung open slowly with creaking noises. The Kryptonian only permitted herself to look up from her boots to the woman sitting on the ottoman by the window when the door had finally stopped creaking.

She had to hold herself back from showing any visible signs of distress at seeing Lena at such a distance, at being able to discern what all those months of captivity had done to a woman with her Kryptonian senses. There was a rattle to Lena's breathing, afraid to inhale and uncertain of whether to exhale. The green in her eyes was not as pronounced anymore, muted and curtained behind what could only be described as hollowness.

All in all, despite having already been rescued for two months, Lena, as an entirety, remained uncertain.

For a brief moment, Kara was grateful to Sam for giving Non as hard as he deserved that time.

If she was guilty before, the weight that was threatening to bring her to her knees now seemed inexplicable. Guilt was too benign a descriptor to give it. Purely because Lena had known her, purely because Kara loved this woman more than she had ever loved anyone, Lena had become the target of Kara's enemies – Lena had to suffer Non's wrath in Kara's stead and end up here.

"I'm sorry," she said, not even resisting from crying.

She was apologizing for so many things at once. For being here. For having done this to Lena. For remind that Lena that she was only here because of Kara. For showing up at L-Corp that fateful day and propelling all these.

"It's not your fault," Lena replied without pause, resolute and sure in her words.

Kara's eyes widened and her heart quite literally stopped a beat before it resumed its work. She couldn't believe this. Lena was smiling that smile of hers, gentle and unbegrudging. Like she understood everything Kara was  _not_ saying. And this all only reminded Kara as to why she had fallen so far for this woman – this gentle soul who only seemed to giving without knowing how to  _take_.

"Come here."

It was a beckoning, not a plea. A soft command, not an ask. And because Kara was the Cupid to Lena's Psyche, she went.

* * *

Not much was said. Not much was done.

Lena was tired. Kara was concerned. Lena was breathing. Kara was simply relieved. They mainly sat by the window – Lena on the ottoman and Kara on the carpeted floor by the ottoman, holding onto a pale and boney hand that had been extended to her willingly.

When they had first captured Non, he seemed expectant of them, not at all surprised to see his ship invaded by his niece and her cohorts. They escorted a gleeful Non out of the ship, and when Kara finally confronted him, the details about everything he had done to Lena only came spilling out all too smoothly. Like that was his goal all along: to do all those stuff to Lena  _and then_ tell Kara  _all_ about it.

An artful person would spare some time to admire his handiwork, the intricacy of his plot, one that took him years to come up with to ensure that he captured the  _right_ person at the  _right_ time with the  _best_ weaknesses. She wasn't artful at that moment – she was in agony and she couldn't listen and she wanted to  _strangle_ him.

She knew everything from his side, but she didn't know how to ask Lena about her side. She didn't know what would happen if she opened her mouth and let the question slip. A part of her wanted to do it just because her guilt was all too heavy, but she also wasn't sure if getting an answer would assuage her guilt or do the opposite.

"I'll be right here," she promised when Lena settled back into her pillows and looked to her in question, fearful that the blonde would leave once she closed her eyes.

And right there, she stayed. She gave herself no permission to fall asleep, no permission to step out of the room, only permission to lock herself down in that uncomfortable chair and hold Lena's hand as the raven haired woman slept.

And she was right there when the first bout of the nightmares began, gaining firsthand experience of exactly how haunting it was to watch Lena toss and turn in her bed, gaining voice in her sleep to cry out to exactly no one and begging a man long since locked behind bars.

"Please," Lena whispered in her sleep, furrowing her brows. "I'll do anything you want. Just don't hurt her."

Kara's heart clenched. She reached out to start stroking Lena's temple, gently muttering words to wake the woman up.

"Hey, Lena, hey. I'm right here. He's not here anymore. I'm right here. Wake up."

Lena's pleas became increasingly desperate and louder. So much so that Alex and Sam appeared at the doorway, looking concerned but not daring to enter. Kara focused her entire energy on Lena, her own desperation to tear Lena out of her misery growing as the woman started crying.

It took a few repetitions, persistence became key. In the end, Kara had to stand up and hold Lena's cheeks with her hands, wiping her tears as she tried to wake the woman up. It did the trick, because Lena stopped tossing around in bed and her cries softened and her eyes slowly fluttered open. The only thing that remained was the frown at the bridge of her nose, which Kara placated by softly rubbing her thumb over the ridges.

In Lena's eyes, there was first confusion, followed by focus directed at the woman hovering over her. And then she was staring at Kara in awe, like she couldn't believe that the blonde was there – this was the moment that Kara swore, once again, to herself that she would die before she let Lena doubt her presence in her life again.

Kara just looked back, making sure to not look away.

At that point, something close to a miracle happened, which was Lena lifting her hands and cupping Kara's cheeks in return. Kara didn't think she needed this until now, this kind of warmth and gentleness that she had only experienced from the woman holding her. But now that she was feeling it, she had to lean in, be as greedy as possible.

"Why are you crying, Kara?"

The Kryptonian choked on air, not even realizing that she was doing that until Lena brought it to attention. She heaved a harsh breath, a mediocre combination of a chuckle and a sob. She leaned down to rest her forehead against Lena's, closing her eyes and enjoying the way Lena's fingers were stroking over her cheeks.

"I am so sorry," she sobbed, listening as Lena whispered affirmations of it not being her fault into her ear. "I am so sorry."

* * *

"Can I see him?"

Kara stopped typing on the laptop on her lap. Alex stopped fiddling with the drips and the chart. Sam had just come in the door and froze in her movements. The trio shared a look that was a mixture of fear and wariness and uncertainty before they averted their gazes to the woman who presented the question.

Lena gave them all a look back before shrugging. "I'll be out of here tomorrow and I don't think I'll want to come back in the foreseeable future. I just want to look him in the eye before I go."

The two Kryptonians were prepared to refuse Lena of her request, out of the love they had for the woman in bed and the natural protectiveness embedded in their DNA, but the DEO agent in the room cut them off. Alex was staring at Lena with this look of comprehension and empathy.

And Kara recalled that the redhead herself had been a victim of a kidnap attempt due to her importance to Kara.

"You want to look him in the eye," Alex reiterated.

Lena nodded in confirmation.

The duo maintained firm eye contact with one another, not letting up one bit. Any other person would have thought they were having a contest, challenging each other to relent first. But the other two people knew Lena and Alex too well to know that it wasn't so.

Lena and Alex were good friends at best, but they had never had any interactions to warrant them a silent conversation such as this, for them to not have to speak to  _speak_ with one another. But here they were, doing exactly that, confusing Kara and Sam, who just wanted to be in on the conversation.

Alas, perhaps it was only something that people who had been harmed due to their places in Kara's heart would understand. And the blonde hadn't had time to consider what she wanted to do because of those statuses based merely on the fact that she loved them. One thing she knew was that she didn't like it.

And then Alex turned to the other two occupants of the room with a nod. "I think she should do it."

"What?"

"You can't be serious."

Kara and Sam exclaimed at the same, expressing exactly the same amount of disbelief.

Alex just spared Lena another glance before she said, "Trust me, she needs it."

"Lena, you –" Kara stopped short when she saw Lena's expression – sucked in cheeks, noisy inhales and exhales, and rigid lips – all signs of determination. At that, Kara only deflated, seeing that Sam was doing the same.

She loosened her fingers around Lena's hand, placed a kiss on the woman's forehead, and strode out of the room to start making sure that Lena would be safe at all times during her time with Non.

* * *

Of all the bizarre and unexpected things to ever happen in Kara's life, including falling in love with Lena and finding out that she and Clark were not the only surviving Kryptonians, standing next to Lex Luthor behind a one-way mirror to watch over a woman they both loved while she confronted the alien who had her submerged in a tank of water wasn't even close to those things.

And yet here they were. Kara in her Supergirl plethora and Lex Luthor in his prison garb, both trying to keep a distance from each other but also unable to stay away from the mirror to make sure that everything was going well.

Alex and Sam were standing on the other side of the mirror, keeping a distance from Lena but also letting Non know that they were not alone. Kara had opted not to join them, because she wasn't certain she'd be able to keep her fists to herself had she been in the same room as her uncle. Plus, Non seemed intimidated enough by Sam's presence, cowering in the lingering existence of the woman who almost beat him to death.

"I will never forgive you for this," Lex said in that smooth voice of his, that voice that had gotten so many to fall on their knees for him and not even know it. He said it in such a way like it was a given, like he didn't only mean it to be that.

Kara ignored the veiled threat and offered, "Don't worry. I haven't forgiven myself either."

"I don't know what you did or said to her to have poisoned her mind to this extent. But just because she loves you doesn't mean I won't go after you – now more than ever, I have more a reason to destroy you and your cousin."

The blonde crossed her arms and turned slightly to train her eyes on the bald man. "Your sister is one of the strongest women I know, and I love her." Lex's eyes flashed at that. "And I can see that you love her too. I don't know how, but somewhere in that twisted mind of yours, you love Lena, even though you've tried to kill her more times than a brother who loves his sister should."

"That wasn't me."

Kara frowned. "What –"

"I don't have to explain myself to you. I've done all the explanations necessary to Lena and I think that should be enough."

None too happy about her obliviousness in this situation, Kara knew that she could only blame herself and her cowardice for it, so she let it go. "Regardless, we both love your sister and you're going back to prison soon, I definitely hold no kind thoughts for you. But for the sake of your sister, don't you think you should just…stay out of trouble and not cause any more for her?"

" _I_ wasn't the one who kidnapped her and did all sorts of unspeakable things to her!" he said, trembling in a kind of fury that almost shattered the illusion of his eternal calmness.

"And  _I_ wasn't the one who disappointed her so much that she's always so determined to not become the man that's representative of her last name," she hissed, jabbing a finger at the mirror. "She was  _willing_ to go with Non, not even allowing us to activate the Kryptonite in her office, because according to her, we are bigger than her; National City is bigger than  _her_. I wonder who did that to her."

He blanched and she felt a rush of satisfaction at his realization.

"So I say, for  _Lena's_  sake, if you can even find it in your crappy twisted diabolical head to even care, we call a truce and we wipe the slate clean."

"If the slate's clean, I'll be out of prison."

"That's between you and my cousin."

Lex turned his body sideways and threw her a scrutinizing glance by eying her up and down. It didn't feel violating, oddly – he was just taking her in, trying to understand all that was between her and his sister. And then when he looked into her eyes again, the confusion lingered, but there was also something else, a kind of dejection that was too unlike a prideful man like him.

"What is it about you that has her so caught up?" he whispered.

It wasn't a handshake. It wasn't a nod. It certainly wasn't an explicitly verbal agreement. But Kara had learned to not look a gift horse in the mouth, so she just shrugged and turned back to the mirror, where Non was increasingly more disturbed by Lena's silence and presence outside his cell.

* * *

"You wanted to look him in the eye."

Lena glanced up from the book she had been reading to look at Kara, who was perched on the other side of the bed and staring at an upside down book of her own. Despite Lena's invitation for her to join her on the bed once the raven haired woman had been discharged and the Kryptonian had designated herself as Lena's caregiver as long as she needed it, the blonde still maintained a distance from Lena.

Because as good of an actress as Lena was, Kara had also learned to study the woman's facial features, including quirks and twitches that came along with emotions. And when the blonde had tried to touch Lena's arm, Lena's eyes narrowed marginally and her lax cheeks had stiffened just that slightly.

And Kara hadn't tried to touch Lena since then, even though she was hurt by it. She told herself that no matter how hurt she was, it could hardly compare to the trauma that her uncle had inflicted upon the other woman.

Beside her, Lena slowly closed the book and took off her glasses, placing them on the bedside table. "Yes," she simply replied.

Kara sighed, fingers twitching on the edges of the book, itching to wrap her arms around Lena and never let go. This morning, while Lena was talking to Lex before they sent him to the prison he belonged to, Alex had pulled Kara aside and urged her not to question Lena's decision to see Non.

"Remember Rick Malverne and I punched him in the face?"

"Yeah."

"That's kind of what Lena was doing, except she's more of a face-off person than a fisticuffs person. Do you know what I mean?"

She did. Except Kara wondered if it did any good at all. If tonight, she would wake up to the same cries and yells that still haunted Lena in her dreams.

Still, she promised she wouldn't question, so she just nodded in response to Lena's confirmation. And then she decided that she had been waiting too long, if Sam's pointed look before she and Alex left the penthouse meant anything. She didn't expect anything back, but she also knew that she had been waiting six months and then more, she would blow up if she waited any longer.

That was why she closed her own book as well and shifted to look at Lena, who was looking back in anticipation.

"I love you," she said.

She watched as Lena inhaled sharply. The anticipation on her features was quickly replaced by fleeting signs of fear before uncertainty set in. And Kara knew that she wouldn't get what she wanted tonight, but she didn't say it for that. She said just because she had to.

She just  _had_ to.

"I realized that I should have told you early on when you were taken away, and I've never regretted anything as much in my life. And then we found you and you – I was so scared to look at you or even be  _near_ you that I couldn't bring myself to say it. But now that we're here, I just – I couldn't wait anymore. I had to tell you. I don't need you to say anything. I really don't. But I just want you to know, because I can't go another day without you knowing that I love you. So much. That I would have gone to hell just for you."

Lena's eyes shimmered with tears at Kara's barely intelligible rant. The blonde didn't pursue her any further. She just nodded with her lips pursed firmly and a sort of resolution that had only ever been present when it came to Alex Danvers.

She started pushing back the blankets and sliding out of bed.

"I'll sleep in the living room tonight. Just call for me if you –"

"Can you hold me?" Lena asked.

Kara tilted her head, eyes wide with disbelief. Lena wasn't looking at her, instead fingering the edge of the blanket. The last time Kara saw Lena this fragile was when she was unconscious and floating in a tank of solution that was meant to keep her alive but  _barely_ , and she knew that Lena would never allow herself to look this vulnerable in front of  _anyone_ , no matter how much she trusted them.

Well, everyone except for Kara, apparently. And this may not be the ending she had wanted after her confession, but it was a good step forward. Kara would take it. She would be there. She would wait. She would wait for the rest of her life if she had to, as long as she could set her eyes on Lena and made sure that she was  _safe_.

"Yeah, of course."

She slid back into bed and waited for Lena to slide down onto her side, facing away from Kara but leaving her back bare to Kara's warmth. Trying to suppress her eagerness, the blonde just pressed herself against Lena's back gingerly, smiling wider when the other woman closed their distance instantly and tugged Kara's arm around her waist, holding her hand against her belly.

Kara kissed the back of Lena's head, grateful that she still had a chance to smell her scent. It was only until Lena's breathing had evened out that she allowed herself to drift to sleep as well, fully aware that in the morning, she would still be holding Lena in her arms.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me about angst and lesbians. also, you can learn how to request for an express prompt on my [tumblr](http://overcanary.tumblr.com/post/180468208042/taking-commissions-caffeinate-me)!


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